This Short Talk Bulletin has been adapted from a paper
delivered to the Virginia College of The Societus Rosicruciana in Civitatibus I
Fedratus by Most Worshipful Brother Jefferson. We thank him for sharing it with
us.

Masonry, the more it is examined, the more beautiful it
becomes. This paper, however im-perfect, is an attempt to explore the origin of
the Perfect Cubit. May it induce others having more extensive means of
information and time for elaborate research to accept the challenge.
Admittedly, the existence of a “Perfect Cubit” has neither historical authority
nor logical possibility to support it. It is commonly believed that the origin
of Masonry took place at the building of Solomon’s Temple and that King Solomon
was the first Grand Master, and Hiram of Tyre and Hiram Abif were his Wardens .

Dr. James Anderson accepts this legend in the second
edition of his “Constitutions”’ when he says that King Solomon was Grand Master
of all Masons at Jerusalem; Hiram, King of Tyre, was Grand Master at Tyre, and
Hiram Abif, in Solomon’s absence, filled the chair as Deputy Grand Master, and,
in his presence was Senior Grand Warden.

Moreover, Reverend George Oliver in “Antiquities of
Masonry said these periods oc-cupy a space of three thousand years. They are
selected for illustration, because it is generally believed that Masonry took
its rise at the building of King Solomon’s Temple.

It is said that Solomon recruited over one hundred and
fifty thousand stone masons, hewers of timber, artificers of precious metals,
laborers and overseers from all over the land, many speaking in strange tongues,
making communication difficult. Chapter 2, Second Book of Chronicles relates how
Solomon numbered all the strangers who were in the Land of Israel, after the
numbering wherewith David, his father, had numbered them, and they were found an
hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand of them to be bearers of burdens
and fourscore thousand to be hewers in the mountain, and three thousand and six
hun-dred overseers to set the people at work.

We must reflect on the monumental task that was Solomon’s
to meld such a huge body of workmen, sorting out their various talents and
abilities, and organizing them into an effec-tive and harmonious work force to
commence building the Temple.

Yet, perhaps Solomon’s greatest problem was the lack of a
uniform measure of length by

which the stones, timbers and other materials could be
joined with accuracy. He spoke of the

cubit, which was used as a measure of length by the
Hebrews, Egyptians, and Babylonians, being the distance from the elbow to the
extremity of the middle finger or approximately eighteen inches. Understandably,
the cubit would vary by the physical size of the workman or

overseer, and thus precluding the use of an exact measure.
World Book Encyclopedia states

that generally the cubit was the length of a man’s forearm
from his elbow to the tip of the

middle finger. The cubit of the Ancient Egyptians was about
21 inches long. That of the An-

cient Romans was 17.5 inches. The Jewish cubit was 22
inches.

Coil in his Masonic Encyclopedia says the cubit was a
measure used by the Hebrews, the exact length of which has been the subject of
much uncertainty and dispute. The majority opinion is that it is the length of
the forearm and hand from the elbow to the extremity of the middle finger or
approximately 18 inches. The Egyptian Royal cubit was 20.67 inches; and the
Roman Attic cubit was 17.57 inehes.

Marsengill, Editor (The Philalethes Society) said,
“According to Bishop Cumberland, the Hebrew cubit was 21 inches but according to
all other authorities, it was approximately 18 in-ches. Two kinds of cubits were
known: the Sacred (36 inches) and the Profane (18 inches). The
measurements given in the Bible about Solomon’s Temple are all based on the
Profane or common cubit.”

Mackey’s Revised Encyclopedia refers to Hastings
Dictionary of The Bible (page 967), “We have at present no means of ascertaining
the exact dimensions of the Hebrews’ ordinary and Royal cubits. The balance of
evidence is certainly in favor of a fairly close approxima-tion to the Egyptian
system.”

The Maryland Master Mason Handbook declares that it is of
great interest that ar-chaeological research has revealed that in Solomon’s day
there were three different cubits: a Land cubit which was used for plot-ting the
layout of the Temple’s courts and the surrounding terrace, which had a length of
about 17.6 inches; a Building cubit used in the erection of buildings was about
14.4 inches; and a Gold cubit used in the construction of the gold and silver
vessels and decorative work which was equal to about 10.8 inches. All these
three are found to be multiples of the basic palm breadth of 3.6 inches which
was used by the Babylonians and also the Hebrews.

Amid all of this confusion about a unit of measure,
especially finding one which was uniform and dependable, it is claimed the
Ancient workmen of the Temple fashioned a rope of human hair which was knotted
at three, five, and seven cubits. The human hair was chosen because it was
unaffected by heat or cold, and thus maintained a constant length. He called
this, “The Perfect Cubit,” which enabled the workmen to join the stones, timbers
and other materials with accuracy.

Worshipful Brother Lawrence J. Chisholm, Worshipful
Master of Joppa Lodge No. 35 in The District of Columbia, authored a weights and
measure section of the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1976, in which he included
these historical comments regarding the cubit.

“Although there is evidence that many early civilizations
devised standards of measurements and some tools for measuring, the Egyptian
cubit is generally recognized as having been the most ubiquitous standard of
linear measurement in the very ancient world. Devised about 3000 B. C., it was
based on the length of the arm from the elbow to the extended finger tips and
was standardized by a royal master cubit of black granite, against which all the
cubit sticks in use in Egypt were measured at regular intervals.

The royal cubit (20.62 inches, 524 millimeters) was
subdivided in an extraordinarily complicated way. The basic subunit was the
digit, doubtlessly a finger’s breadth, of which Ihere were 28 in the royal
cubit. Four digits, equalled a palm, five a hand. Twelve digits, or three palms,
equalled one small span. Fourteen digits, or one-half a cubit, equalled a large
span. Sixteen digits or four palms, made one t’ser. Twenly digits, or five
palms, were a small cubit.

The digit was in turn subdivided. The 141h digit on a
cubit stick was marked off into 16 equal parts. The next digit was divided into
15 parts, and so on, to the 28th digit which was divided into two
equal parts. Thus, measurement could be made to digit fractions with any
denominator from 2 through 16. The smallest division, 1/16 of a digit, was equal
to 1/148 part of a royal cubit.

The accuracy of the cubit stick is attested by the
dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh;

although thousands were employed in building it, its sides
vary no more than 0.05 percent from the mean length of 9,069.45 inches (230.364
meters) - about 4 ½ inches in 755 feet”

In Oliver’s Antiquities he said: “The structure thus
begun, according to a plan given to Solomon by David, his father, upon the Arc
of Alliance, every energy was used to render it a perfect specimen of art.
Every stone, every piece of timber, was carved, marked, and numbered in
the quarry and the forest; and nothing remained for the workmen at Jerusalem but
to join the materials with precision, on a reference to the marks and numbers,
This was effected without the use of’ either axe, hammer, or metal tool; so that
nothing was heard at Zion, save harmony and peace.” Itis a real testimonial to
the Ancient Craftsmen that the parts could be so shaped at great distance and
fit as they were intended. It is assumed this was due in part to the use of the
perfect cubit.

Upon the significance of the three knots in the perfect
Cubit . . . three, five and seven. Mackey in his history (Volume l)
referred to the symbolic character of those sacred numbers in the teaching of
the Ancient Art and Science . . . three, five, and seven. In the same spirit of
symbolic reference, the steps of the winding stairs leading to the middle
chamber were divided into a series of three, five, and seven.

At the onset of this paper, it was stated that the
existence of a “Perfect Cubit” has no

historical authority. Again, Mackey in Volume One (p. 9)
states for a faithful and thorough in

quiry of the history of Freemasonry, carefully separate the
two periods into which it may be

naturally divided, The Historic, and The Prehistoric.

The Historic is the period within which we have genuine
documents in reference to the existence of the Order.

The Prehistoric is the period within which we have no
such records and where we have to depend wholly upon legends and traditions.

In the preface of Mackey’s History (Page Vll) Robert
Ingham Clegg reflected that Brother Mackey . . . pointed out that the very age
of the Masonic institution had tended to confuse mere traditions or legends with
the authentic truths of history, and he welcomed light from all directions but
carefully applied critical standards to the source and standing of the
information that came his way. By no means was he ready to reject a Masonic
legend as fable.

It is left to the Masonic scholars and prominent
historians to determine whether “The Perfect Cubit” is a Masonic legend or
fable.